Intangible Cultural Heritage as a Factor of Tourist Destination Development

The article is devoted to the theoretical investigation of employing intangible cultural heritage (ICH) as a factor in developing tourist destinations. The article aims to determine the possibilities of using the resource potential of ICH in tourism as a factor in the development of a tourist destination. It was achieved through induction, deduction, generalization, and systematic analysis. The article analyzes the number of elements of ICH according to the lists of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage and the list of intangible cultural heritage of Ukraine under the protection of UNESCO, National List for Intangible Cultural Heritage. Authors found that components of ICH, such as performing arts, customs, rituals, celebrations, traditional crafts, etc., are extremely popular among tourists in tourist activities. Particularly, traditional crafts such as pottery and ceramics attract a special interest, allowing the active involvement of tourists in master classes. In the article the authors suggested ways to optimize the ICH as a tourism resource. The authors have developed a Model of a Center for popularizing ICH in a tourist destination using pottery as an example. The components of the model include organizational and managerial components, which involve creating an effective organizational structure for the Center; process and activity-based component, which involve creating a unique, exclusive product to promote the element of pottery in the tourist destination; and result-oriented component, which involve achieving results from the proposed activities that would ensure the preservation and development of ICH, tourism development, job creation, economic development of the tourist destination, etc. Implementing the authors’ proposals for utilizing ICH to develop a tourist destination will allow stakeholders to stimulate tourism in Ukraine, protect the interests of tourism business entities in challenging wartime conditions, and enhance the efficiency and competitiveness of tourist destinations in Ukraine.